Ordinary Gweilo

The English Schools Foundation is still making headlines, this time over the election of a new Chairman and Vice-Chairman.  The new chairman is, gasp, a woman, an outsider (having had no previous connection with the ESF), and Chinese, but has considerable experience in the education sector.  Professor Felice Lieh-Mak was apparently approached after ESF parents concluded that they needed to find someone of stature from outside the organisation:

“The dream candidate envisioned by the discussion would have to be Chinese, female, steeped in education, well-liked by the government but not beholden to it, and with a peerless reputation for probity.” [from The Standard, quoting an email from Nury Vittachi to Christine Houston]

The professor was head of the University of Hong Kong’s department of psychiatry for nearly two decades before retiring in 2001. [from the SCMP]

However, Christine Houston, one of the prime movers behind the campaign to prevent Mike Haynes being appointed as Chief Executive, feels that the decision was made by the “old boys” and that the members of the Foundation were not given the chance to choose their own candidate.  The problem seems to be that the chairman had to be an existing member of the Foundation, which should have ruled out Professor Lieh-Mak:

Parents opposed to Haynes suggested other names for the chair, including Civic Exchange chief executive Christine Loh and former chief secretary for administration Anson Chan. But these names were dropped after parents learned the nominees had to be foundation members.

However, this turned out not to be a major obstacle.  Professor Lieh-Mak was last week named the University of Hong Kong’s representative and thus became eligible to be a candidate.  What is not clear is whether it would have been possible for other candidates to be found a place on the Foundation in advance of Monday’s meeting (presumably this would only have been practical where the representative is appointed rather than elected). Nevertheless, I doubt whether Christine Loh or Anson Chan were really serious candidates.  At this time, surely it made sense to find a respected figure from the education world who would be able to give the role the attention it deserves.  Perhaps there were other equally eminent people who could have stood if more time was available, but Professor Leih-Mak seems like as good choice as any.

The key point about Mike Haynes was that he was both the ultimate insider and not obviously well-qualified to be the Chief Executive of the ESF.  If he had not been an insider it is likely that his appointment would have been approved, or if he had been better qualified for the job the doubts about the way he got on to the short-list would not have been so much of an issue.  Needless to say, Professor Leih-Mak is both an outsider and well-qualified for the role, which explains why she was overwhelmingly elected.

The next task is to find a new Chief Executive, and it seems that this time they will looking for someone with a strong background in education.  There’s a novel idea.